The chapter covering Upper Manhattan and the Bronx voted against recommending an endorsement at its Wednesday night meeting, according to Annie Shields, uptown Bronx co-chair of the organization. | AP Photo

Socialist group moves closer to Nixon endorsement

ALBANY — Cynthia Nixon inched closer to gaining the endorsement of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America after a third local branch recommended backing her insurgent campaign for governor.

The Central Brooklyn branch approved the recommendation during a Wednesday night meeting, according to Danya Lagos, an official with the organization. Branches in South Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan already have recommended endorsing the “Sex and the City” actor’s Democratic primary bid against Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

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But there still is simmering dissent. The chapter covering Upper Manhattan and the Bronx voted against recommending an endorsement at its Wednesday night meeting, according to Annie Shields, former uptown Bronx/Upper Manhattan co-chairwoman of the organization.

The NYC-DSA’s citywide leadership committee will meet Sunday to consider an endorsement of Nixon and City Council Member Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), who is challenging Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul. A 60 percent majority is required.

“We’ve never had to figure out what to do in a statewide race before,” Shields said. “This is very exciting, but posing a variety of logistical and practical questions of whether we can pull this off or what it looks like.”

Nixon told POLITICO she identified as a democratic socialist earlier this month, before pitching the NYC-DSA at a general membership meeting. She is campaigning for single-payer health care, a key DSA priority, and stricter rent controls.

The NYC-DSA has seen a burst of energy in recent weeks after one of its members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeated Rep. Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary. Julia Salazar, another NYC-DSA member, is running a Democratic primary challenge to state Sen. Marty Dilan (D-Brooklyn) and has cross-endorsed Nixon.

The prospect of backing Nixon has prompted debate among NYC-DSA members, who are torn between pushing someone to advance their issues and maintaining their purity and husbanding their resources for other campaigns.

“Endorsing Nixon and Williams may not only fail to bring us closer to building a socialist movement led by the working class, but it may in fact impede our efforts to do so,” wrote a group of democratic socialists. “Nixon is a multi-millionaire who has donated less than 5 percent of her income to charity. She has filled her campaign with personnel associated with Mayor Bill de Blasio, including her campaign manager, who helped write the mayor’s ‘affordable’ housing plan — a Trojan horse for gentrification and mass displacement of poor, predominantly black families.”

A dueling essay by political scientist Susan Kang also has made the rounds on social media. In it, she attacks Cuomo as a corporate Democrat who will do nothing to act on key planks of the democratic socialist agenda, despite other achievements praised by progressive groups.

“In an ideal world, we would have one of our own members running against Cuomo. In an ideal world, a third-party candidate would have a chance,” Kang wrote. “But we live in the current conditions and currently we have the unique opportunity of a candidate who wants our endorsement, calls herself a democratic socialist, and has what is frankly an almost perfect minimalist socialist policy platform who has a chance to defeat Cuomo in the primary election.”

Speaking to reporters this week in Queens, Nixon said any organization would have a difference of opinion.

“I think that what democratic socialism is doing and has been doing for a number of years is really invigorating progressive values and taking the issues like single payer health care and moving them front and center … for what not only our candidates but our elected leaders should be fighting for,” she said.

Cuomo does not identify as a democratic socialist, and is not seeking the NYC-DSA endorsement. The Green Party ticket of Howie Hawkins for governor and Jia Lee for lieutenant governor has filled out a questionnaire seeking the NYC-DSA endorsement in the general election.

Hawkins, speaking at a press conference in Albany, said the NYC-DSA would do better to stay outside of the existing party structures and noted his own socialist roots.

“We’re the only socialists running,” Hawkins said. “The others that have suddenly taken the socialist label are old-fashioned liberals. They want to partially mitigate the inequalities and irrationalities of capitalism after the fact — we want distribution to be fair in the first place … and we want economic democracy, which requires social ownership.”